It’s a particularly busy time for Tyla. Just hours before she and I hopped on the phone, the 23-year-old dropped a new musical release titled WWP (which stands for We Wanna Party). The artwork shows the budding pop star in a skimpy, flirty ensemble. Complete with metallic fuchsia Louboutins, a rhinestone-clad martini top from Dolce&Gabbana’s FW01 collection, and a healthy dose of confetti and body glitter, the image nods to the party girl-meets-rockstar vibe she’s been emitting on social media and beyond.

Just a week before the drop, Tyla hosted private listening parties for devout fans in both London and Berlin, where she teased upcoming tracks from the mixtape. A week before that, she headlined the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, a few mere days before dropping the music video for her single “IS IT”—which had already racked up nearly 8 million views by the time we connected on the phone. Just a month earlier, she gave her 12 million Instagram followers a glimpse of what was to come, posting a photo from the studio in True Religion bootcut jeans and rhinestone platform heels, paired with a caption that reads almost like a mantra: “Confetti, loud music, heavy bass, blurry vision, bodies, dance, summer, Stogo, money, wild, fame, FUNNN!!”

When she picks up the phone and says hello, her voice is understandably faint, given that later in the evening she would be out all night celebrating the arrival of a new musical release in New York City. It’s almost kismet that she would find herself in the city that never sleeps, known for its non-stop ethos in both work and play, for the official start of a sonical new year ahead, following her explosive debut with her 2023 viral track “Water.” A year before our call, her first editorial for V—captured in Manhattan as well—made waves online during a whirlwind of a year, one that cranked up the speed of her living in the fast lane. “My life has been very exciting. I’ve learned a lot,” she says.  “Within such a short time, I’ve grown a lot. I feel like I was kind of forced to grow up a bit faster and step more into myself.”

“I just want to be a rockstar, you know?”

To put all that growth into perspective: before her debut studio album, Tyla, dropped in March of 2024, her monumental year was already off to an undeniable great start. She had just become the first South African soloist in 55 years to enter the US Billboard Hot 100, a milestone that led to her being awarded the inaugural Grammy Award for Best African Music Performance. With Met Gala appearances, Coachella sets, and even landing a hosting gig for the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards in between, Tyla was slipping away to studios around the world to record new tracks that reflected her current chapter—one powered by bass-heavy stages and glimpses of glamour from red carpets and after-parties. “I’m just at a point where I’m ready to share [more] with people, because I’ve been in the studio figuring out how I can put my year and my experiences, and how I feel about myself now, into the music. I’ve been working a lot on what I want to present, and I’m just excited to start sharing it with everybody.”

But where does a musical process for a new chapter begin? For Tyla, it started with the closing of what was easily the best year of her life. “This [past] December, I was partying in Nigeria and South Africa. I was just living my life, to be honest. I was doing some shows there, and then I went to LA to just work on music,” she explains. “I was there for a while, and I started the process over there, but I [ended up] making some more tracks in London and Barcelona.” If there’s one thing you should know about the songstress thus far, she’s pretty much born for the jet-setting lifestyle. In fact, being in so many places at once inspires her work all around.

“I like recording in different places because it just has a distinct feeling [wherever I go]. I enjoyed recording in London because the studio space I worked at was just so unique, [filled] with paintings, and the way the lighting was [helped to inform] the songs that I made there. I made ‘Mr. Media’ there in London,” she notes. “I was just with all the people I usually work with, and they’re my friends outside of work, so it was exciting to just be with them again and to make music and just laugh and have fun in between.”

Luckily for the musician, the sentiments embedded within her music, poised to last generations, echo her life at this very moment, wherever she is on the globe. “I feel like growing as a person influences the music a lot,” she explains. “Just traveling around, figuring things out, going through lots of ups and downs, life on the road, and even being from South Africa, where this life is very different than what I’m used to and what I grew up around naturally changed me as a person. You can feel it and hear it in the music. For a long time, I wasn’t showing much of myself. In the beginning, I was a little bit more shy, but through everything, I’ve gotten way more comfortable with people knowing everything they want to know about me. I feel so much better about everything now. I feel like I’ve gotten used to it. I don’t think anyone really gets used to this life, but I’ve kind of gotten the hang of it a little bit. I just want to be a rockstar, you know?”

“I like to create music that makes me feel.”

Like any rockstar who’s passed through the hub of pop culture, it’s the artists who endure—through trial and error—who leave the deepest mark, outshining those born from fleeting, overnight success. As Tyla continues to grow, it’s the thrill of exploring new territory that excites her most—pushing boundaries and getting more comfortable in her artistry, whether she likes the end result or not. “With ‘Bliss’, I was trying to be experimental because that’s one of the first songs I made [for WWP]. When we shot the video, I was trying to experiment, and when it came out, I was like, ‘Absolutely no.’ I thought it was just funny because I was trying to do something new, just to do it for fun. I literally told my team, like ‘Yo, this video is about to be a meme’, but I’m happy with myself for trying something and not being so serious about every little thing,” she explains. “I’ve always been a perfectionist, but now I’m okay with people seeing me figure it out, try new things, and find myself through this experience.”  

With a new single titled “Chanel” out this fall and a hotly anticipated tour in Asia for the winter months, she’s hoping to make this moment last for a while—maybe even forever, if she can manage it—while creating songs that her fan base, whom she refers to as Tygers, can listen to time and time again. “I like to create music that makes me feel. [With] rap songs, the way people speak about luxury, being spoiled—that music is fun to me to listen to and dance to with my girls. So I want that feeling for my Tygers [with my music]. I feel like there are a lot of people that can connect to it, because I’m 23, I’m going through life, and I’m experiencing things that a lot of people can relate to.”

This story appears in the pages of V156: now available for purchase!

Photography Jack Bridgland (SN37 Agency)

Fashion Anna Trevelyan

Creative Director / Editor-in-Chief Stephen Gan

Editor / Interview Kev Ponce

Makeup Jimmy Stam (Opus Beauty)

Hair Ursula Stephen (A-Frame Agency)

Manicure Gina Oh (The Only Agency) using Vetro USA and Aprés Nail

Casting Greg Krelenstein (GK-LD)

Art Director Clément Condat

Lighting Director Ryan Hackett

Digital Technician Chris Parente

Movement Director Jorge Dorsinville (Streeters) 

Production Locals Worldwide

Grillz BITTER000000

Location untitled NYC

Photo Assistants Alonso Esteban Ayala, Mike Broussard

Fashion Assistant Rashied Black

Hair Assistant Ariana Green (A-Frame Agency)

Makeup Assistant Gabriela Vega (Opus Beauty)